RHS Counselors Connection
January 2019 Edition
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The Top 10 Best New Year's Resolutions for Teens
For many people, a new year feels full of hope and possibility, which is probably why so many of us feel the desire to improve ourselves as the year begins. Here are some possible New Year’s Resolutions for you to consider:
1. Learn Something New
Trying something new is one of the best ways to develop ourselves. Learning a new skill can stretch us, help us meet new people, and give us new confidence. It’s ok if you end up not liking it, just trying something is the goal – it’s not a lifetime commitment. You could learn how to: play a new sport, knit, cook, skateboard, play a new musical instrument, take beautiful photographs, play chess, or join a new group. The possibilities are endless! Resolve to just try one new thing this year.
2. Become a Better Friend or Family Member
Relationships are one of the most important parts of our life. Having good relationships can make everything in life sweeter, and having bad relationships can drain all of your energy. Make an investment in some of your closest relationships by resolving to be a better friend or family member. Being honest, attentive, fun, supportive, trustworthy, dependable, caring, and accepting are the qualities of a good friend. Pick the quality you have the most trouble with and find ways to improve it. Or, choose to be a friend to someone who is lonely or doesn’t seem to fit in.
3. Find a Cause
Finding a way to make the world a better place can be incredibly fulfilling. There are so many ways to help others, so resolve to look through the options, find something you feel passionate about, and jump in to help! To help you jumpstart your research, here are some ideas:
· donate stuff you no longer use to those in need,
· perform a random act of kindness each day,
· raise money for a charity walk in your town,
· organize a blood drive;
· give some manual labor to Habitat for Humanity;
· collect canned goods for the food bank;
· care for animals at the shelter;
· clean park trails; or
· send care packages to troops or sick children.
4. Be a Role Model
There are few goals as noble as trying to be a good role model to those around you. The key here is to make smart decisions in front of other people. Say no to drugs and alcohol. Stand up to a bully. Quit smoking. Invite the new kid to sit with you at lunch.
5. Manage Stress
No one can avoid stress, but we can learn how to manage it. A little stress can actually be good – it helps us develop our strengths, as well as persistence. Too much stress, however, is unhealthy and can make you sick, not to mention miserable. Learn how to best manage your stress by trying out these stress relievers and finding the one that works best for you: exercise, get more sleep, journal, listen to music or perform some type of art like dance or painting, read a book, take a walk, or learn relaxation exercises, such as mindful breathing.
6. Improve your GPA
You do not need to make a goal to get straight A’s. Simply resolve to bump up your school performance by just a little bit this year. For example, you could try extra hard to bump that “C” in math to a “B.” You can do this by: always completing your homework; putting in extra time studying; or getting a tutor. You will feel better about yourself, your parents will be proud, and you will be setting yourself up for a brighter future. You can get study tips in our previous blog: Good Study Habits in Teens.
7. Read for Fun
Reading strengthens your mind, improves your literacy (which significantly improves your chances for a successful adulthood), and opens your perspective to new ideas. Unfortunately, school can sometimes ruin the joy of reading, since it’s a story you didn’t pick and you’re being graded. So, instead, choose 3 books to read this year that are not school books. Choose stories that intrigue you! You might ask friends or a librarian for recommendations, and choose books from different genres, such as science fiction, fantasy, gothic novels, inspirational biographies, page-turning mysteries, love stories.
8. Eat Slower
Our culture likes to do everything fast, and that even translates into eating. We buy fast food, and we gobble it down before we even taste it. Consider a resolution to eat more home-cooked meals, choose healthy snacks, and put your fork down between every bite to slow down. Those simple steps will easily help you lose weight and be healthier.
9. Get Moving
This is a popular resolution that many fail to keep, but it is worthy of consideration. Exercise is one of the very best ways to become healthier. Get off the couch a little more often to play sports, walk with a friend or the dog, swim, cycle, skate, or generally move around.
10. Take a Healthy Risk
Exploring your limits and abilities is a normal rite of passage for teens and can help you learn a lot about yourself. But, clearly, there are good risks and bad risks. Risky behaviors such as trying drugs or driving without a seat belt are dangerous and not constructive. Healthy risks are things that make you stretch and grow as a person. For some teens, simply meeting new people can be a risk, while others might like an adrenaline-charged sport to get their thrill. Think about what seems risky to you – maybe joining a new club, expressing an unpopular opinion in class, taking up rock-climbing, or trying out for the school play – and give it a try! Many of us avoid these types of health risks, because we fear we will fail, but these are exactly the type of risks you need to find out what you’re capable of and prepare you for the inevitable risks you will need to take as an adult.
Tips for Success
· Be specific. Write down your goals and then define specific, concrete paths to reach them. Set deadlines for your steps within each goal and track your progress. The more self-monitoring that is done, the more likely you will succeed.
· Keep it simple. Keeping resolutions should make you feel better about yourself. So, it’s important not to make wild resolutions that are too difficult to follow. The promises you make should not be too hard to keep or create additional stress.
· Plan ahead. There will be times when you don’t feel like continuing towards your goal or when your enthusiasm gives way, so have a plan for how you’re going to pull yourself out of that lull.
· Make it official. Share your resolution in some way, such as telling others about your resolution, posting it on the refrigerator or the mirror in your room, writing a contract with yourself, or keeping a journal. When you make your goal official, you will feel more accountability for achieving it.tart with your focus for the monthPositive Panther Project
Developing Personal Responsibility & Integrity
Taking Personal Responsibility Shapes Your Future
You are totally responsible for your life. This is the foundational principle you must embrace if you plan for happiness and success for your life and work. For many people, everything is someone else’s fault. Every problem can be explained away with reasons why they can’t affect the situation or the outcome, especially at work where it is easy to find excuses because people are so closely intertwined.
Every failure has a scapegoat that they can use to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions—failure is never the result of the choices they made.
But without taking responsibility, you're all the more likely to look at your career as a failure because you allowed any passing wind to blow you around, all the while blaming the wind for how things turned out. When you fail to responsibly guide your direction and outcomes, you set the stage for creating a miserable —a life that fulfills none of your dreams and aspirations.
Make No Excuses
Excuses for failure, excuses about your choices in life, excuses about what you feel you have accomplished—and what you have not--fuel dysfunctional thinking and consequently, undesirable actions and behaviors.
Making excuses instead of taking one hundred percent responsibility for your actions, your thoughts, and your goals are the hallmark of people who fail to succeed both in their professional lives and personal lives.
Part of the power of taking responsibility for your actions is that you silence the negative unhelpful voice in your head. When you spend your thinking time on success and goal accomplishment, instead of on making excuses, you free up the emotional space formerly inhabited by negativity.
This is especially true as that negative voice in your head will run endless tapes of dissatisfaction and rehearse negative, unsatisfying outcomes over and over and over again—ad nauseum.
The next time you catch yourself making an excuse, whether for the late project, the unmet goal, or the job you have chosen to work, gently remind yourself—no excuses.
Interrupt that incessant tape that is playing in your mind and stop rehearsing that excuse-filled conversation. Spend your thought time planning your next successful venture. Positive thinking becomes a helpful habit. Excuses fuel failure.
How to Take Responsibility for Your Life
People who take complete responsibility for their life experience joy and control of circumstances. They are able to make choices because they understand that they are responsible for their choices.
Indeed, even when events that are not under your control go awry, you can at the very least determine how you will react to the event. You can make an event a disaster or you can use it as an opportunity to learn and to grow.
The most important aspect of taking responsibility for your life is to acknowledge that your life is your responsibility. No one can live your life for you. You are in charge. No matter how hard you try to blame others for the events of your life, each event is the result of choices you made and are making.
Want to travel? Then, travel. It is not your job, your spouse or partner, the cost, or the time that holds you back from achieving your dreams. It is you. Want to weigh a certain number of pounds? Then, eat and exercise like the person who would weigh that particular weight.
Want a promotion to a management position? Then, act like, look like, and practice the actions that successful managers exhibit in your organization in that role, Make your desire known, too, as you will never realize your goal if you keep it a secret. Passed over several times? Ask what you need to do to earn a promotion. Still passed over? Look for a new job to continue pursuing your dream.
Above all else, listen to that little voice in your head. And, observe yourself talking with coworkers, family members, and friends. Do you hear yourself taking responsibility or placing blame?
- Eliminate blame, eliminate excuses. If the blame track or the excuse track plays repeatedly in your mind, you are shifting responsibility for your decisions and life to others.
- Listen to yourself when you speak. In your conversation, do you hear yourself blame others for things that don’t go exactly as you want? Do you find yourself pointing fingers at your coworkers or your upbringing, your parent’s influence, the amount of money that you make, or your spouse? Are you making excuses for goals unmet or tasks that missed their deadlines? If you can hear your blaming patterns, you can stop them.
- If an individual you respect supplies feedback that you make excuses and blame others for your woes, take the feedback seriously Control your defensive reaction and explore examples and deepen your understanding of the coworker or friend. People who responsibly consider feedback attract much more feedback.
You Matter
Live every day as if what you do matters—because it does. Every choice you make; every action you take—matters. Your choices matter to you and create the life you live. Your choices matter at work, too. You choose the path of productivity and contribution or, you choose the path of a marginal employee.
Every action you take affects organizational progress in one way or in another. You always make a difference. Let that difference move the world forward. You matter. And, your thoughts matter, too.
Your Thoughts Matter
“We become what we think about most.” Earl Nightingale’s apt summation of the power of your thoughts is one of the most significant statements ever made. Think about it. Your thoughts are always with you.
And, they tend to play themselves over and over again in your head. They either support you to think about and take positive action or the opposite. Your thoughts either criticize or they support the accomplishment of your goals.
Listen to the voice in your mind. You know the drill. Negative thoughts are overwhelming and they can take control of your mind for days. But, how to get even, how to replay or recast a situation that has already occurred, or how to make excuses or blame others is not powerful, positive thinking.
When your thoughts are negative or unsupportive of your happiness and success, you have to change your thinking. Gently—don’t beat yourself up—redirect your thinking to thoughts that will support your success and happiness. Laugh, if you can, when you think about the time you spent obsessing over matters that are over and completed.
Your thoughts govern the success of your interpersonal interactions. Your thoughts are the headlights illuminating your path in the darkness. They always precede you and your actions. Said Nightingale, “The mind moves in the direction of our currently dominant thoughts." Believe him.
CLICK HERE to view this full article.
College Corner
University of North Florida
University of North Florida is a public institution that was founded in 1965. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 14,255, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 1,300 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. University of North Florida's ranking in the 2019 edition of Best Colleges is Regional Universities South, 42. Its in-state tuition and fees are $6,394 (2018-19); out-of-state tuition and fees are $20,112 (2018-19).
The University of North Florida is located in Jacksonville, about 10 miles west of the Atlantic coastline and about 150 miles east of the state capital of Tallahassee. Students at the University of North Florida can choose from many areas of study, including graduate programs in the Coggin College of Business and in the fields of education and health. Students can get involved by joining more than 200 campus clubs, pledging with more than a dozen fraternities and sororities and by running for student government.
The university, often abbreviated to UNF, also offers many opportunities for students to explore campus media via a website, magazine, TV station and radio station. Student athletes can play at the intramural, club or varsity level. The UNF Ospreys intercollegiate teams compete in the NCAA Division I Atlantic Sun Conference and are cheered on by Ozzie Osprey, their feathered mascot. Notable University of North Florida alumni include Todd Haley, former head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs professional football team, and Patrick Faber, the minister of education, youth and sports in Belize.
University Profile
Fall 2017 Student Enrollment
Undergraduate13,475
Graduate1,992
Post baccalaureate and non-degree1,024
Total16,491
Academic Profile
(Based on Fall 2017 FTIC admit/enrolled class)
Average incoming freshmen GPA4.27
Average incoming freshmen rSAT1271
Average incoming freshmen ACT26.43
Faculty and Staff
Full-time faculty (instructional)568
Ph.D. or appropriate terminal degree469
Employees (excluding faculty)1228
Faculty-to-student ratio1 to 18
Majors by College
Brooks College of Health2,929
Coggin College of Business3,100
College of Arts and Sciences6.366
College of Computing, Engineering and Construction1,818
College of Education and Human Services1,393
Undeclared885
For more information about the University of North Florida, please call (904) 620-1000 or visit their website at www.unf.edu
Career Planning & Spotlight
Registered Nurse
According to www.nursing.org, Registered Nurses (RNs) power the healthcare system, ensuring the intricacies involved in patient care flow smoothly. Without a strong workforce of RNs, the daily operations of healthcare would quickly grind to a halt. As healthcare demands shift from acute care to the management of chronic illness, the need for RNs is growing rapidly. The information here serves to introduce this rewarding and essential career.
WHAT DOES AN RN DO?
A registered nurse is an individual who has graduated from either an ADN or BSN program and passed the NCLEX-RN (National Council Licensure Examination). RN’s work in a variety of settings and their daily activities will vary depending on their specific work environment. However, there are some skills and situations that will be applicable to all RNs, regardless of their specific job.
POTENTIAL WORK SETTINGS
- Hospital
- Physician’s Office
- Home Healthcare
- Nursing Care
- Correctional Facilities
- Schools
- Clinics
- Military
CRITICAL REQUIRED SKILLS
- Detailed & Organized
- Compassionate
- Mental and Physical Strength
- Patient and Resilient
- Stress Management
- Observant
- Critical Thinking & Judgment
- Responsible
- Communicative
SALARY
Median Hourly Wage: $35.36
Median Salary: $73, 550
A Registered Nursing (RN) degree can be obtained through a two year nursing program. However, nursing programs also offer a Bachelors and Masters of Nursing Degree option. Registered nurses must pass the State Boards of Nursing requirements for the state in which they practice.
Scholarships 101
Now is the time to set up accounts on the scholarship databases listed in the left hand column. Start applying early and for as many as you can. A lot of scholarship money goes unused because students don’t apply. Also check with the schools you plan to apply. They each have their own scholarship applications and deadlines.
Federal Financial Aid
It is also time to request your FSA ID. You will need this to complete your FAFSA. CLICK HERE for directions. BOTH you and your parent must request a FSA ID prior to completing the FAFSA. FAFSA opens on October 1, 2018 for the 19-20 school year (the year you plan to attend college or other institution).
Florida Bright Futures
Information about eligibility requirements can be found at the Florida Bright Futures website. Be sure to check your specific status at Florida Shines. Your State ID is your social security number with an X at the end. If you have questions about your status, see your School Counselor.
Institutional Financial Aid
Each college or university also has their own sources of financial aid. You need to check with each school individually to see if they have a financial aid application.
Scholarship Databases
There are several online scholarship databases that provide secure links to apply for private scholarships. We recommend that you use one (or many) of these to ensure that your private information is not stolen. Googling scholarships can lead you to scam or phishing sites that target students for identity theft.
http://studentscholarships.org/
http://tuitionfundingsources.com/
http://college-scholarships.com/
http://www.militaryscholar.org/index.html
Private Local Scholarships
As local organizations contact us with scholarship applications, we will post them on the RHS Scholarship Bulletin. Be sure to check it out often for updates. Here is a sample of what is available right now.
Optimist International
Open to all 9th - 12th graders. Essay contest- “When all the world’s problems are solved, is optimism still necessary?” Awards up to $2,500. Go to www.optimist.org/member/scholarships3.cfm. Deadline January 2019.
Gates Millennium Scholarship
Minority students who meet federal Pell Grant eligibility criteria and have demonstrated leadership abilities; must be nominated by an educator. Go to www.gmsp.org for full details. Deadline January 2019.
Rayonier Advanced Materials Scholarship Program
Eligible candidates will be high school seniors attending a high school within a 45-mile radius of the Jesup or Fernandina plants and be accepted and enrolled in a relevant engineering program at one of the following university: UF, FAMU, FSU, USF, UCF, UNF, Georgia Tech, Georgia Southern University, University of Georgia, NC State or Auburn University. For more information and to apply go to https://aim.applyists.net/RYAM/ Deadline January 7, 2019
Student Resources
SAP (Student Assistance Program) Counselor- Kim Barrera
The Student Assistance Program works with identified adolescents to screen for risk factors that may interfere with a student’s ability to positively cope with life challenges and stressors. The program consists of individual and/or group prevention activities where teens work with an SAP team member 1-4 times a month on a short term basis. SAP does not provide direct therapy services but can assist students with accessing services through Clay Behavioral Health. You can ask any of your teachers to go see Ms. Barrera in Building 5 room 554 or you can talk with your School Counselor to be referred for services.
Military Life Counselor- Atrews Bell
Mr. Bell provides a variety of services and/or referrals for students with a parent/guardian on active duty or retired military. This can include academic assistance, personal counseling, help with transitioning from school to school and much more. See your School Counselor for more details or stop by Mr. Bells office in Building 1 room 140.
Contact Us!
Pre-IB & IB Students
(904) 336- 8912
Lori.feathergill@myoneclay.net
Maria Littlejohn
Student Last Names A-E
(904) 336- 8904
Maria.littlejohn@myoneclay.net
Jackie Welch
Student Last Names F-L
(904) 336- 8903
Jacquelyn. welch@myoneclay.net
Margo Whyte
Student Last Names M-R
(904) 336-8902
Tabbatha Johns
Student Last Names S-Z
(904) 336-8906
Tamara Mansel-Tucker
College & Career Coach
(904) 336-8889